Adolfo Carrión Jr. to Embark on Longshot Mayoral Bid

Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president, at the National Conference of Independents in Manhattan on Saturday. He says New Yorkers might want a moderate option for mayor.

Hiroko Masuike / The New York Times

By DAVID W. CHEN

February 18, 2013

For Adolfo Carrión Jr., the magic number in the 2013 mayor’s race is not 40 (the percentage of primary votes needed to avoid a runoff), or $6.7 million (the maximum that candidates who receive public financing can spend).

Instead, Mr. Carrión, a former Bronx borough president who says he will run for mayor this year, is fixated on 71: the percentage of New Yorkers who did not vote in 2009, because, in his view, “they think the electoral books are cooked.”

Mr. Carrión, who said he expected to formally declare his candidacy in the next two weeks, said he was hoping for a boost on Wednesday, when the Independence Party is expected to endorse him, guaranteeing him a spot on the November general election ballot. And Mr. Carrión said he was still optimistic that he could persuade Republican Party leaders to allow him to compete in their primary, even though there are multiple registered Republicans seeking the party’s nod.

In an interview, Jacqueline S. Salit, the political strategist for the Independence Party, said that Mr. Carrión shared many of her party’s goals, including nonpartisan elections in New York City. And she said that Mr. Carrión promised to throw a “wrench into the standard political playbook” by “putting a new kind of independent progressivism on the table for New Yorkers.”

“This campaign will be fierce, it will be competitive and it will surprise” the old guard, Ms. Salit said.

“We’re movement builders, we’re nonpartisan reformers, and we think that Adolfo Carrión is going to be a great partner in all of that,” she said. “And that’s why we’re supporting him.”

Mr. Carrión, 51, spent the last few years working as the head of the White House’s Office of Urban Affairs, then as a regional director of the Obama administration’s housing agency. In the course of a 45-minute interview, he mentioned “national gridlock and paralysis” at least four times in explaining why he wanted to run for mayor.

He said he understood that some people will criticize his candidacy, and his decision to leave the Democratic Party to secure a path to the ballot. And he said he realized that one of his career’s low points was fair game: a $10,000 fine from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board for a renovation project on his home which relied on an architect who was involved a major development project requiring his approval.

Still, Mr. Carrión believes that the time is right for an independent candidate who can offer a moderate alternative to Democrats who could be viewed as too liberal and tied to labor, and to Republicans who could be viewed as unsympathetic to the needs of middle-class residents of boroughs beyond Manhattan.

“If it’s a three-way race, we can win this,” he said.

Mr. Carrión said he would emphasize four issues: public education (where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has “moved the needle” in a positive direction, he said); housing for low-income and working-class families; infrastructure investment in the wake of Hurricane Sandy; and a “five-borough economic development program.”

He said he viewed the much-debated stop-question-and-frisk practice as “strong and smart policing” that had made the city safer. But he also said that the practice should include one more element: stop, question, frisk and “respect.”

Asked about Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Carrión said that he liked “his independent style and forceful approach about getting things done.” But he also said that he was uncomfortable with the mayor’s “nanny state” tendencies.

To many political analysts, Mr. Carrión is a long-shot, little known outside of the Bronx, who might simply be hoping to raise his profile for a future run or political appointment, and could function as a spoiler in the race. But analysts said it was unclear whether Mr. Carrión would hurt the Democratic or Republican nominee more: conventional wisdom holds that Republicans, who are outnumbered in the city, need the Independence ballot line to win, and Mr. Carrión appears likely to prevent that, but most of Mr. Carrión’s base is made up of Latinos, who have traditionally voted for Democrats.

Jefrey Pollock, president of Global Strategy Group, who has advised Mr. Carrión in the past but is staying neutral in the mayor’s race, said that Mr. Carrión would face “a major-league lift” to persuade Latino Democrats not to vote on the Democratic line.

“There will be people in the Latino community rallying hard to support the Democratic standard-bearer,” he predicted.

But Mr. Carrión is not deterred. He already has $878,000 in his coffers from a 2009 account that he established when he was contemplating a bid for comptroller. He has connected with his past supporters. He has even begun the P90x workout that has been all the rage on Capitol Hill.

But Mr. Carrión said he knew that his bid to become the city’s first Latino mayor without being affiliated with either major political party is “obviously a high-risk proposition.” And already, his rhetoric sounds at times like the first draft of a concession speech.

“If we can move the needle on the important issues that affect people’s lives and force every candidate to discuss those issues, then the electorate wins,” he said.